Forever Yours
by FeralShadowwolf
Summary: Picked up from exactly where 4x06 left off, on the porch. The end has come, but how will Damon take the news?
1. The End of an Era

_Continued from TVD 4x06, Stefan and Elena are on the porch._

"What will you do?" Elena asked, rubbing her arms as though she were cold.

He sighed, still unable to look at her. "I don't know. I might go away for a while." He felt Elena about to protest, but continued, "While Klaus is in town, and now that he knows about Jeremy, you'll all be safe. No more hunters after you, and Klaus will protect him."

"That's not what I was worried about." Elena said softly.

He smiled and looked at her. "I know." It was those moments that killed him; those moments where she was exactly who he'd always known her to be, who he'd fallen in love with. Those moments when she was human. "But I'll be fine." He dropped his gaze from her again. "And what about you? What will you do?"

Elena looked away from him and back out to the front garden. The garden where her parents had taught her how to swim in a paddling pool, where Jeremy took off his training wheels from his bike for the first time. So many memories all dancing around in her head; it felt like a lifetime ago. It _was_ a lifetime ago. "There's a loaded question." She smiled feebly.

"And it's none of my business." He nodded.

"No, that's not what –" Elena reacted, then took a breath. "I just don't know is all."

"I guess we've both got a lot of thinking to do." Stefan said.

Elena looked at the first man she loved with a mixture of sadness and regret. "I am sorry Stefan, I am truly sorry."

He smiled at her. "So am I." He took her hand. "Goodbye." He stood up from her porch and began the last walk away from her.

"What will you tell Damon?" Elena shouted after him.

Stefan swung round, and in the moments before he walked out of her life, perhaps for the last time, the last words to her were, "I'll leave that to you."


	2. It All Starts Here

"What happened?" Damon said, barging through Elena's front door. He found Elena sitting on her sofa, she stood to meet him. "Stefan just blew out of town and said he didn't know where he was going or if he'd be coming back."

"I know." Elena said quietly, not quite able to look him in the face. Her fists were clenching, shaking them on occasion.

"You know? Well what happened? He wouldn't tell me a damn thing. You better not even tell me he's gone all errand-boy for Klaus again." Damon warned.

Elena looked him in the eyes, feeling for the first time the real potential of being this close to him. "He's not with Klaus, Damon." Elena breathed.

"Then what the hell is going on? Cos last time I checked, we don't get vacations." Damon asked incredulously. The look on Elena's face moved Damon to realise that this was serious. "Elena, why isn't Stefan coming back?"

Elena inhaled and turned round to get some space. Where was she to start? How could she start? "Damon…" She turned to face him again; he searched her face for the answer.

"Don't tell me you two are having another lover's spat? I thought I fixed this, Stefan was just trying to protect you – " Damon began.

"It's more than that Damon. It wasn't just keeping Klaus' secret from me, it's everything. Since I became a vampire, things just haven't been the same. Everything changed, _I_ changed." Elena began, she looked to Damon imploring him to understand without her saying it, having no idea how to tell him after _everything_ the three of them had been through, after everything she had put him through.

"Stefan just needs some time to adapt, Elena, you both do." Damon offered.

Elena closed her eyes in disbelief and smiled, "This isn't something that needs to be fixed, Damon. That's the difference here, this is something…" She inhaled and looked him dead in the eye. "This is something that I don't want fixed." She let those words hang in the air for a few seconds, searching Damon's face, though it remained impassive.

"You broke up." Damon concluded. Silence filled the space between them, the whole house seemed to hum. "You broke up with Stefan."

Elena did not dare drop Damon's gaze; that was something in herself she immediately knew was different. In her human days, Elena would have dropped his gaze in a second the moment she had that feeling in her chest and head; a light-headed, heated feeling. Now, as a vampire, that feeling had grown, magnified; it had turned into this passion that Stefan was right about, that she couldn't ignore anymore as much as she had wanted to for Stefan's sake. It made her Damon's equal, it made her keep his gaze. Neither one of them said anything; yes, Stefan and Elena had been back and forth in the last few years but now it was definite, now it was final, and the scary thing was they all knew it.

"It's more than that." Elena took a step towards him. "I broke up with Stefan… for you. I want _you_, Damon." She took his hand in hers; the move so foreign to him, he watched her do it as though it were in slow motion, as though it were all a dream.


	3. The Handover

Stefan walked into his Chicago apartment, the one he had left behind when he moved back to Mystic Falls and met Elena. He closed the front door and dumped his travel bag beside him. The morning light invaded the unfurnished space, the dust created an unwelcome mist and –

"Hello brother." From the bedroom entered Damon, bottle of bourbon in one hand and a glass of bourbon in his other, the latter of which he raised to Stefan.

For a moment Stefan stood stunned, "Damon? How did you – "

"Don't flatter yourself Stefan, you're an open book. I knew if you ever left you'd return to the familiar, your home away from home." He smiled mockingly and took another sip. "Plus, you left this." Damon flashed Stefan's diary at him before lobbing it at him. Sure enough, on the very last page was his musings about his feelings about Elena, what he would do if the conversation he needed to have with her panned out the way he expected.

Stefan clenched his jaw. "This is the last place I expected you to be, after... everything."

"What you mean because of your and Elena's little break-up?" Damon smirked and began walking about the place, peeking through his drawn curtains out of habit. "You don't really believe that's going to stick, do you? You and Elena break-up and make up all the time, it's like something off a CW show." Stefan began to protest but was cut off by Damon. "Besides, you can't stay here, you hate Chicago."

"I loved Chicago. I just hated what I became here." Stefan corrected.

"Same diff." Damon shrugged. "So are you coming back with me or not?"

"I'm not going back to Mystic Falls, Damon. So go home." Stefan walked towards his brother and grabbed the bottle of whiskey out of his hands, taking a swig for himself. "Besides, isn't this exactly what you wanted?"

Stefan stared his brother down, Damon holding his gaze and through clenched jaw he said, "It's everything I wanted."

"Then _what _are you even doing here?" Stefan asked incredulously. "You won Damon, she wants you."

Damon swallowed the last of his bourbon, down in one, and turned away from his brother. "She loved you first."

"Well, you knew that going in. Never seemed to stop you before." Stefan replied, looking into the bottle and taking another swig.

Damon laughed to himself. If only Stefan knew the amount of times he'd taken the high road, put Stefan first at the cost of what could've been with Elena. "No it did not."

"So what's different now?" Stefan asked, leaning against the wall.

Damon stiffened up and turned back to face Stefan. "Look, as much as I'd love to laugh and cry and reminisce and grow, quit being a pain in the ass, grab your froofy bag and get in the car."

"Why Damon, what's the point? So you can make me watch you and Elena make a go of it?" Stefan shouted.

"No!" Damon shouted. "So you two can work out whatever this is, the latest in a long long history of spats and she won't think..." Damon's clenched fists relaxed, he blinked and looked away. "Forget it."  
"No Damon, say it, she won't think what?" Stefan stood up. "She won't think that she loves you? Is that what this is really about?" Stefan took a moment to look at his brother, who couldn't look him in the face. "She told you that you were the reason we broke up, she told you what she told me, that she has feelings for you, and you what? Bolted?"

"Well what was I supposed to do?" Damon seethed, his eyes imploring Stefan for the answer. "I'm in love with her Stefan. I was in love with her then, I'm still in love with her now. And throughout the whole time, the _whole_ time, I loved her, she was in love with you. So yes, I'm just a little thrown by the slight chance of pace." Damon snatched the bottle off Stefan and went to down another shot, just as Stefan snatched it back off him. Damon glared angrily, a warning shot as to what would happen if he didn't give him the bottle back. Stefan stood nose to nose with his brother, matching Damon's threatening look with his own.

"You coward." Stefan growled.

Damon felt the aggression rising in his chest. "Say that again."

"You're a coward, Damon. You don't need this," He raised the half empty bottle of bourbon. "You need Elena, and as much as it sickens me to say this to you, she needs you too. Now more than ever." Damon backed off and rolled his eyes.

"What she _needs_ is time. You think that all of this is about you and her. It's not, it's bigger than that. She's a vampire now Stefan, and she's adjusting. How long do you think before she adjusts to the change, before you would've adjusted to the change?"

Stefan took a breath, smiled and then chuckled. "_That's_ what you think this is? A new vampire mood swing?"

"Sure as hell looks like it to me." Damon seethed, and muttered, "Nothing but ignorant, melodramatic children."

"Damon, this isn't a choice she just made overnight – "

"No, you're right, it took several. From the night she became a vampire to last night." Damon remarked.

Stefan continued, ignoring Damon's comment. "This is not something she'll go back on, or just feel differently about tomorrow. _She's _different now, nothing I can do can change the fact – "

"That's she's a vampire now, I know." Damon nodded along.

Stefan looked down and smiled defeatedly. "Actually, what I was going to say was, nothing I do can change the fact that she's in love with you."

Damon looked at his brother for any hint of sarcasm or mockery, but found none. "Oh." Damon took a breath, and then blew back a shot of bourbon as Stefan handed him the bottle. "As much as I hated it, as much as I wanted it to be me and not you...Her loving you while I was just standing by the wayside, I knew how to do that. I mean, you know, I wasn't _passively_ on the wayside, but still..."

"Thanks for that by the way." Stefan said dryly.

"You're welcome." Damon shrugged. "But despite that, she always chose you." Damon looked at his brother, looking for what it was she saw, what he'd always known about his brother: that he was the better choice.

Stefan looked to the floor, knowing without a doubt that he'd be walking around on them for the foreseeable future once Damon left to go back to Elena. He sighed, "I think I always knew on some level – "

"No you didn't." Damon winced.

Stefan smiled. "I never wanted it to be true." Stefan's eyes met Damon's. "But I knew. But I don't think that she really realised it until now. Vampire or not, Damon, it was always going to be you."

"But if you find a cure, she'll be human again. What's to stop her from changing her mind again?" Damon asked, inwardly hating this heart-to-heart but needing it all the same.

"I guess that's why it's called risking your heart." Stefan said. "There's no guarantee, Damon. The question is, is it worth it?"

"You know she is." Damon said.

"There you go then." Stefan nodded. Silence hung in the air for a few moments, letting them each absorb their new situation. "So, you just left after Elena told you?" Stefan said, lightening the mood.

"Pretty much." Damon said, swigging the bottle and giving it back to Stefan.

"Won't she be pissed?" Stefan pointed out.

"Pretty much." Damon said, smiling. "I better head out." And Stefan nodded. "Are you gonna be alright?"

"I'll manage." Stefan said sombrely, as he walked Damon to the door.

"And us? Are we gonna be alright?" Damon asked, pausing as he swung open the front door.

"We'll manage." Stefan nodded.

Damon gave his brother a thankful nod. "You know what? You're a good brother, Stefan."

There was nothing Stefan could say; for the moment, everything between them was set, everything was as it was and for the time being, that's all that could be between them. They both knew they had each other's backs if it came to that, but in the matter of Elena Gilbert, there could only be one, and she had chosen.


	4. Osmosis

"Hi Meredith, it's Elena." Elena said feebly into her phone. She hadn't spoken to Meredith since the transition, simply for having nothing to say to her. Elena didn't blame Meredith insomuch as she didn't know what to feel for the woman that inadvertently saved her life by killing her. "No, I'm fine. Actually, I'm calling about Damon. Have you heard from him?" Elena waited to hear something, anything, to give her a hint of where he went or why he just took off like that. She knew being a vampire would scare off people sometimes, but she never imagined what scaring Damon off would look like; now she could picture it really well. "Oh ok." She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice. "No, I'm sure he's fine. Could you just please let him know that I'm looking for him if you hear from him?" Without Alaric or Stefan, Elena couldn't think of anyone else he would've confided in, but she knew Meredith had helped Damon out in the trailer last week and figured she was her best hope. "Ok, thanks. Bye."

It had been two days since Elena had told Damon what had happened between her and Stefan, two days since she told him that she wanted to be with him, really be with him. He looked at her as though she was possessed, muttered something about having to go somewhere, and then left without a word as to where or for how long he'd be gone. She hadn't slept in two nights, she kept feeling guilty for wanting Damon and watching Stefan go, she was worried about her brother's new calling, about what Klaus had planned for him and Tyler and Caroline; most of all, she kept thinking about blood. She couldn't stop, it was like a darkness that was always pumping beneath the surface of her skin. Matt's blood was helping her through it, but she didn't trust herself after last time so she was feeding much less than she had to, and only when Caroline or Tyler was present; when someone could pull her back like Damon had done. Her world was, as usual, falling apart, and not even Damon was there to pull her back when all she wanted was to go too far.

Still, school beckoned. The remnants of normalcy beckoned, though it was feeling increasingly like a waste of time. She couldn't help but think that she could always be in school, she would always be a teenager, but without Caroline, Matt, Bonnie, Tyler and Jeremy she barely wanted to be there now, let alone 50 years from now. And they would all move on, some would grow old and she would have to watch them live lives as she became the auntie that never grew older but still rocked the awesome presents come birthdays and Christmases. And the others would maybe travel the world, or carve their own lives out of the immortality they had been given, assuming it didn't get taken from them at some point. And these were the thoughts that were whirling around Elena's head every moment of every day and night, never ceasing, never calming, and all she could feel was panic for all these different thoughts in many different ways. And the only time she ever felt calm, the only time her brain would take a rest and she could take a breath and have it mean something, was when she was with Damon. And right now, she had no idea where he was or what he was thinking.

The bell rang, telling Elena she had History. Alaric's class. Elena stared at the bell that had so much power over her school life, that told her where to be and when. Suddenly she knew she couldn't make it to Ric's class, that last period would just have to do without her today. As Elena walked off campus and began to wander about the town, she had no concept of the time that passed, minutes or hours, and little inclination to find out. Without meaning to, she found herself in the cemetery. Usually she would go and speak to her parents, but after seeing her mom – what looked like her mom – on the bridge, she hated herself for thinking it, but she needed space from them too. She had no idea what they really thought of her being a vampire, whether the Hunter's portrayal of her mom was accurate or not, and it scared her to death.

"Elena." In the midst of her internal monologue, she hadn't even felt his presence surround her. Elena stopped and turned to see Damon. For a second there were no words, just the space between them, and the countless gravestones around them.

"You're back." Elena observed, not knowing what else to say to him at this point.

"I am." Damon confirmed, equally at a loss.

"Where did you go?" Elena asked, afraid to move.

Damon took a breath. "I went to see Stefan."

Elena didn't know what to say to that. "And now you're back."

"I am." Damon said evenly.

"So what? No explanation or..." Elena began, the anger rising in her voice. "You disappeared, Damon. I told you... and you just left."

"I know. I'm sorry. I had to clear my head." Damon admitted, taking a few experimental steps towards her.

"Of me?" Elena asked, mostly confused.

"No." Damon shook his head. "I'm just... What you told me, Elena, about you and Stefan, and then you and me, I'm just a little thrown. After everything. It will always be Stefan. You said those words to me, several times, and I guess they eventually sank in." Damon confessed.

"I know, I'm sorry." Elena took his hand in hers.

"But then you tell me it's over with Stefan, and it's everything I ever wanted with you Elena, but..." Damon played with her fingers with his.

"But what?" Elena whispered.

"You _know_ you and Stefan aren't together now because you're a vampire, right?" Damon said in one breath.

Elena looked lopsidedly at him. "It's more complicated than that – "

"But at its most basic level, Elena, that's it exactly." Damon brought his free hand up to caress her cheek the way he had so many times before, the way he did when he knew that's the closest he'd ever get.

"I won't deny it changed me Damon, you know it did, but it didn't create something that wasn't already there. It magnified it. It magnified it so much that I couldn't hide it from myself anymore, or Stefan." Elena admitted. "I'm sorry it took me becoming a vampire to see this, but that's what it took and I can't change that."

"I understand all that." Damon said, stroking his hand through her long, dark hair and out of her face.

"Then what's wrong?" Elena asked gently.

"Elena, it took you becoming a vampire for you to tell me this... and all of that is great, perfect even, for as long as you're a vampire." Damon sighed.

"What do you – You mean the cure." Elena took a small step back from Damon to fully appreciate what he was saying. "You mean you think my feelings for you will change if I get the cure and became human again."

"Not if, Elena, when, when you get the cure." Damon said forcefully. "Don't pretend you don't want it."

"I thought you didn't believe in it." Elena said sceptically.

"It's not even about that Elena, whether it exists or not, human or vampire I love you, all of you, in any form you're in." Damon professed, the intensity of his passion searching her eyes for a hint of the same. "It's about whether you can love me, if you changed back."

Elena clasped his face in her hands and pulled his face closer to hers while she was on tiptoes; they were so intimately close that she could have compelled him. "Damon, you have to believe me, that in any form I'm in, I know now what this is. I know I made a mess of getting here, I know that, and I am so sorry for hurting you along the way, I wish I could take that back." Elena released him slightly, falling back onto her heels, but not letting him go. "But despite whether I am human or vampire or a doppelganger or a flying banshee, I know one thing will never change: I am now and have always been a better version of whatever I am when I'm with you." Elena smiled, knowing in her heart that it was the truth. She searched Damon's face for understanding, and his taut expression relaxed, his eyes softened.

"I've wanted this for so long." He whispered. Elena felt a single tear slip down her cheek and she felt herself nodding. For the first time since she met the Salvatores, there was at last freedom. Freedom to love one person wholly, no more being split between being with the person she thought she should be with and the person she knew deep down all along that she had to be with, to survive, to thrive, to grow in every way... except maybe physically.

She felt his lips press against hers, felt his body move closer to hers still and nothing had ever felt more right. That hunger for blood was satisfied when she was with Damon, the decibels of thoughts were muted, and on that one firm spot where she stood, she felt she could move heaven and earth, as long as Damon was beside her. And Damon, as he held Elena in his arms, felt her power against his own, he realised that Stefan was right; the fantasy would've been enough if that's the way he had to live the rest of his existence. But to be loved by her, to be the one that she chose to be with, was far better than enough; it was extraordinary.


End file.
